Jefferson Davis to Joseph E. Davis

Richmond, Va., February 21, 1862.

My Dear Brother: I am in possession of your ever-welcome favors of
the 2d and 6th insts. Among my many causes for painful anxiety created
by recent disasters in Tennessee, none perplexes me more than your
condition. I had realized the embarrassment and loss of removal before
your reference to it, and had believed it would not be necessary, but
recent events shake my faith. The enemy are for the time occupied with
the interior, and I have directed Captain Hollins to move up the river
with his fleet In two or three weeks it is expected that some fourteen
vessels, to be manned by "river men," will be ready to leave New Orleans
for operations against the enemy's gunboats. Beauregard was sent to
command and direct the troops and defences on the river above
Memphis--and in the adjacent country.

I am the object of such special malignity that the neighborhood would
suffer because of my residence there if the enemy should get so far
down the river. Your property would be the next to my own an attraction
to the plunderers It therefore seems to me that it might be well to send
away as far as possible all which is mine, to send away, even up
the Big Black, your cotton and valuables, and be ready to move your
negroes and part of the stock, should a descent be made. 0! how I wish
to be with you, and fervently do I pray that you were in some place of
absolute safety, with your family and mine. All I have, except my wife
and children, I am ready to sacrifice for my country. We have very
imperfect intelligence of the disaster at Fort Donelson. I cannot
believe that our army surrendered without an effort to cut the investing
lines and retreat to the main body of the army. General Johnston's
messenger has not reached me; in the meantime I am making every effort
to assemble a sufficient force to beat the enemy in Tennessee, and
retrieve our waning fortunes in the West.

With love to sister Eliza
and the children, and a solemn appeal to you to take counsel of your
prudence rather than your courage, I am ever, affectionately,

Your Brother

From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 8, pp. 53-54. Transcribed from the Cambridge, Mass., Chronicle, May 7, 1864, as reprinted in the Washington Morning Chronicle, May 13. The letter was among the papers seized by Union troops in Mississippi in 1863.